A few weekends ago, I joined my friend Brittany Wheeler on her podcast to talk about the structures I built to survive, without frameworks or blueprints. We talked about how I eventually had to heal from those same structures, and how that journey gave rise to my social impact business, Wayward Purpose, and these Waymarkers.

Listening to the recording this week stirred an odd but familiar feeling I’d never quite been able to name. During the conversation, I’d been telling my stories while also watching myself tell them. Narrating my own life like it had happened to somebody else. Somewhere along the way, my attention returned to Brittany and I. Present with her, inside the conversation I’d been watching myself have.

I’ve felt that split before. Hearing it back this week gave me language for it. This experience made me think about how I was in the arena and in the stands at the same time. That thought set this whole thought process in motion. So, thank you, Brittany.

[If you have time and would like too, click here, to listen to the episode on Spotify, or click here, to watch on Youtube. Also find more of the great work Brittany is doing and follow her @thebrittanywheelershow on Tiktok or Instagram.]

One of my favorite speeches is President Roosevelt’s “man in the arena.” Around it, familiar advice has gathered, and people have used it to emphasize a list of different mindsets over the years.

“Get in the fight. Stop critiquing from the stands. Don’t let the armchair quarterback decide your worth. You should only listen to the people who have been in there with you.”

I understand the value of that advice. I also struggle with the separation it assumes. For what I’m calling my wayward mind, the arena and the stands have never felt like separate places.

Maybe you recognize this, too.

A mind with range, capable of carrying a lot, that never fully powers down. Physically in the arena; mentally there and in the stands at once. Living the moment and narrating it. Acting and auditing the action in real time.

Like I wrote in The Arithmetic of One, it’s two people on opposite sides of a street, shouting back and forth. But this time, both voices are the same person. That ability to watch myself can help me recognize patterns and possibilities. But, it can also pull me away from the very thing I’m trying to understand.

Here’s where that cost shows up, on a random Tuesday, nowhere near a microphone.

Someone tells me they’re concerned about a decision I’m about to make. Before they’ve finished, my mind is gone. Every outcome I can imagine, every branch, every version of how this could go wrong. Now mapped, ran, survived, resolved, and many problems hurdled over.

Or that’s how it feels.

In less than a second, I’ve lived an imagined lifetime and landed back in the room. They’re still holding the same cup of coffee. And now, minus Robin Williams, the vines, and the vortex of time travel, I mentally say “Jumanji,” and I’m back. A whole life between two heartbeats.

Then I open my mouth. What used to come out were three words I try not to use anymore:

What I meant was: Whatever happens, I’ll be fine. I’ve survived worse. I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. I already ran through hundreds of scenarios. I got this.

BUT…What almost always lands and is received by the person across from me with those three flat words were none of those imagined outcomes attached. They never went to Jumanji with me. They have none of the thought process that just happened. And what lands is indifference. Arrogance. A slammed door. They feel dismissed, unheard, or disrespected.

In my head, I’m already at the end of the movie during the last scene in Jumanji, trying to stop the parents from taking the ski trip because I know what happens next. Except I don’t know what happens next. I’ve imagined it, and ran twenty-five different timelines. And the person in front of me is still speaking, or waiting for my response to their concerns.

That’s the part I have to reckon with. It took me a long time to recognize my responsibility to see the person beyond what was happening in my own head. It took even longer to understand that not everyone’s mind worked like mine. I’ve worked hard to stop saying “I don’t care” because it never carried what I meant. But changing the words only goes so far if my attention keeps leaving the person hearing them.

Listening to the podcast this week helped me name that feeling of being in two places at once. It also left me wondering where was my attention going, and what was happening while it was gone?

Clarity is supposed to be the reward for a mind like this. See enough, think far enough ahead, and surely you’ll get to rest. (Cue “Clarity” by Zedd.)

For me, seeing more possibilities often multiplies the noise. A hundred threads asking for attention at the same volume. If only that label maker I bought on impulse could sort what matters from what’s merely loud.

Seeking clarity becomes a trap when I haven’t first asked what deserves my attention. Through therapy, I’ve come to recognize how much of my past anxiety gathered around those competing possibilities. Everything felt urgent. There weren’t enough hours, or enough nervous system, to hold it all.

Under that pressure, relief can become its own pursuit. Scrolling away an evening. A drink becoming several. A bet for the feeling of waiting, not the odds. Texting multiple people just to get a response. Those behaviors have different stories behind them. The pull I recognize is wanting one moment when nothing needs solving.

Grounding brings me back to a simple practice of paying attention, on purpose, to what’s actually here.

Sometimes that means staying with what’s true now instead of the worst case I’ve already imagined surviving. Sometimes it means asking whose outcome I’m carrying and handing back what was never mine to solve. Sometimes it means tolerating uncertainty, or recognizing that I’ve given a question everything useful I have for today.

The arena helps me understand what that looks like.

If I’m listening to myself in the stands critique every move, I can freeze in the middle of the fight. Meanwhile, there are lions and tigers and bears, oh my, in front of me. Right now. They need my attention.

I’ve built frameworks and methods to help me function in that arena. I need to understand them well enough to use them, and trust them enough to act without reviewing every move as I make it.

If I get bitten or cut in the imaginary arena, I can return to the stands. Look at what happened. Question what I thought I knew. Gain some insight, adjust, and go back.

Seeking clarity has a place in that rhythm. Putting my attention where it belongs helps me recognize what I actually need to understand. Sometimes I need reflection. Sometimes I need to let what I’ve already learned support the next step.

And sometimes I’m in the arena when I should be in the stands. [This isn’t my fight.] Being able to see a problem doesn’t automatically make it mine to enter.

I’m still learning to hold both places. The living and the watching. To recognize who’s beside me, when to step back, and which place needs my attention. Some days I catch myself narrating a life I haven’t finished living yet.

Listening back to my conversation with Brittany reminded me how easily that happens, even when I’m sharing something that matters to me. I can be speaking honestly and still need to bring my attention back to the person I’m speaking with.

The person across from me is still there. In the arena with me, while I’ve lived an entire imagined lifetime from thirty different seats in the stands, watching our conversation from every angle at once. Returning my attention to them gives me a place to begin. The next bit of clarity can come from there.

Maybe this gives you language for something you’ve felt, too. For now, this is another small step on the wayward path to restoring togetherness.

More soon, from further down the path. Until then, keep wayfinding.